


Lessons in Breathing

by asparagus_writes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Whump, Broken Bones, But the hurting and comforting are done by the same person, Episode: s01e14 Defenders of the Peace, Gen, Hiding Medical Issues, Hurt Anakin Skywalker, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Medical Procedures, Missing Scene, Protective Ahsoka Tano, needles tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:41:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26777542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagus_writes/pseuds/asparagus_writes
Summary: Anakin knew he should be thinking through how to approach all this with her, but he was just too tired. Ahsoka was okay, right? It could wait until he stopped feeling so…terrible.A continuation of TCW episode 1 x 14, Defenders of Peace, in which Aayla Secura’s teachings need a little reinforcement, but Ahsoka’s Master is having trouble getting the words out.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-6116 | Kix & Anakin Skywalker, CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 203





	Lessons in Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> Tw for medical treatment, needles, trouble breathing, broken bones.

Anakin could feel Ahsoka watching him as they finally boarded the shuttle that would take them off Maridun. He knew he probably needed to talk to her—it was early enough in her apprenticeship that he was still getting used to the idea that it was up to him to figure out what to say and how to say it when she needed him. Her worry would have been plain for anyone to recognize, even if Aayla hadn’t said something to him about it in passing earlier. Such attachment was frowned upon in the Jedi Order, even if Aayla could be counted on—as one of the more unconventional Jedi he knew—to gently correct rather than pass judgement.

That was another thing he needed to do: thank Aayla for guiding Ahsoka when he couldn’t. While he’d been unconscious, the two had obviously established a rapport. He saw the way Ahsoka looked to her for advice—the way they had exchanged easy smiles as they had wrapped up the mission.

A small flame of jealousy sputtered to life somewhere inside him, but it extinguished itself quickly. Another day, he might have had to dedicate some energy to squashing it, but today, he was just happy for Aayla’s help.

And, judging by the unconscious scowl that his padawan wore despite the relatively successful outcome, something else was troubling her—maybe the frustrating pacifist attitude of the Lurmen leader was still on her mind. It would still be up to him to handle that.

And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? Anakin found himself struggling to accept the Lurmens’ attitude as well, yet he would need to find a way to explain it away. The only reason he’d been able to hide his distaste was because he’d had more practice than Ahsoka at burying his convictions for the sake of negotiation. He was even disinclined to find fault in her concern for himself, knowing too well what it felt like when Obi Wan was injured.

Anakin knew he should be thinking through how to approach all this with her, but he was just too tired. Ahsoka was okay, right? It could wait until he stopped feeling so…terrible.

He could tell the Lurmen who were watching them as they filed onboard the transport, despite being grateful for their assistance, were happy to see them leave, and in truth Anakin was just as relieved to be leaving.

Spotting an open seat that was folded down from the wall of the shuttle’s hold, Anakin sank down onto it gingerly, his abused ribs protesting. He barely resisted the urge to press his hand to his side in what would have been an effort to ward off the uncomfortable shifting feeling in his chest that had plagued him during the battle to protect the village. His restraint didn’t accomplish much because a spike of concern cut through the Force around him anyway—apparently seeing him forgo wandering into the cockpit and taking the pilot’s seat as he usually did was enough to make Ahsoka suspicious.

So maybe their talk couldn’t wait. He lifted his right hand (the only part of him that didn’t ache) and gestured her over. If he couldn’t come up with anything particularly wise to say, at least he could reassure her for the time being. (Although, the way his chest felt tight, like his insides had been jumbled up and everything had not found its way back to the right place yet, was admittedly concerning even with his limited medical knowledge.)

Ahsoka strode over to him quickly—more quickly than he hoped _he_ would have to move in a long while—probably happy to not have to keep monitoring him from afar. She came to stand very close next to him. He had to tilt his neck up slightly to look her in the eyes.

“Ahsoka,” he said to her, “You can relax. We’re done. I’m okay.”

“Are you sure, Master?” she said anxiously, skepticism coloring her tone. She was bouncing very slightly on the balls of her feet, and Anakin couldn’t fathom how she had the energy to be so keyed-up right now. He was however, grateful that he noticed she was doing it. It gave him an idea of what she needed from him.

“Hey,” he said, “breathe with me for a minute. You’ve been _on_ for a while now, but you need to slow down, alright? You did a great job of staying on top of things and taking charge, but you need a break.”

Ahsoka blinked rapidly at him, and he knew his own tendencies in battle well enough to guess that she was just now realizing how fast her mind had been going. She was a lot like him, and he didn’t know whether that should worry him or make him proud.

Anakin began to take a deep breath in, and she followed suit. The action was definitely harder than it should have been, and he found himself having to reinforce his mental shields so she wouldn’t sense the burst of pain it sparked. He slipped his left hand under his knee so he could grab at the edge of the seat and brace himself. Fighting his instincts, which were trying to tell him taking another deep breath would be a bad idea, he did it again. After taking several breaths with her, he was gratified to see some of the tension in her bony shoulders slipping away. Ahsoka’s eyes drifted closed. She was taking stock of herself and her thoughts—good.

_Nice job, Master Skywalker_ , he congratulated himself, trying to distract from the fact that it felt like he was trying to breathe through a straw.

He doubted either of them would actually reach a true meditation, but it kept them busy until he felt the ship settle underneath them as it touched down in the hangar of the Jedi Cruiser waiting above Maridun. The jostling made several spots on his body scream out in pain for a split second: his head, his left hip and his _blasted_ ribs. Anakin gritted his teeth.

Ahsoka was studying him as the ship’s ramp lowered with a hiss. He checked his mental shields again, hoping she hadn’t sensed the jolt of discomfort from him. Sighing inwardly, he wished he didn’t have to move from this spot for a few more minutes. Or hours. But no.

Anakin lifted his right hand to her, and she understood what he wanted, grabbing him firmly around the mechanical wrist and pulling. He leveraged himself upright and his body lit up in pain again. While his surroundings seemed to slightly refocus themselves around him, Anakin avoided looking at his padawan.

Rex came to walk next to the two of them as they made their way down the ramp, acknowledging both of them with a simple, “Sir.” Anakin was more than happy to let Aayla and Bly take care of getting the prisoners into holding. The few steps they had taken had already slightly winded him.

Taking in the particular way the Force felt here and the markings on the clones and ships around him, it didn’t take Anakin long to figure it out—this was the _Resolute_. Maybe someone had told him before they left that it would be, but he didn’t think he had been listening. He briefly felt better just knowing he was back on his ship.

He soon picked out Kix by his armor, making his way towards the three of them. Someone must have called it in that he was hurt. That, and the bandages he still wore, stained with whatever strange tree-pod-based oil Wag Too had used, would have made it obvious.

“You should let Kix check you out, General,” Rex told him, loud enough that Ahsoka could hear. That was yet another thing he would have to do: thank Rex for helping him save face in front of his young padawan. Thank Rex for _a lot_ of things, actually. This way she wouldn’t have to see him making the decision to go to the medic himself, which would have been a straight admission that he was not okay.

He nodded to Rex and instructed Ahsoka, “Go with Master Secura, alright?”

“Yes, Master,” she said, a sour expression crossing her face as she watched Kix approach. They hadn’t really had their talk, had they?

“Remember your training,” he told her as they parted, trying to send a subtle reminder she should try to get a handle on her worrying again. It was what Obi Wan might have said to him, and in truth it was all the advice he could manage since breathing was becoming increasingly difficult.

Anakin made himself start walking to meet Kix, leaving Ahsoka and Rex to go the other way to the bridge.

“What happened, Sir?” Kix asked, cutting right to the chase.

“Long story,” Anakin said, allowing himself to sound breathless just to get the words out. “But an explosion’s the short version.”

“You got treated?”

Anakin nodded. “With what, I’m—” he paused to force air into his lungs, “—not sure.”

“Trouble breathing?” he noticed, and Anakin knew clone voices well enough to detect the concern in it. Anakin nodded, breathing solely through his mouth now. He tried to focus on the wind of breath coming through his lips instead of the tightness in his chest. Kix slipped a subtle hand under his elbow and Anakin was grateful for it, despite himself.

“Do you need a stretcher?” Kix asked so only he would be able to hear. Anakin doubted Kix had been trained much in patient-doctor confidentiality on Kamino, but he was just good like that.

“ ‘S not _that_ bad,” he managed, though privately he thought it would be a close thing to make it all the way to the medbay on his own two feet. He was feeling worse, fast.

Underneath the primal panic of not being able to breathe right, which Anakin ruthlessly pushed down, he was frustrated as they walked to the medbay. He _had_ been feeling better—it had felt like whatever Wag Too did had mostly worked. And then during the battle, he certainly hadn’t been at one hundred percent, but he’d been able to function. An adrenaline crash, he decided.

Once they got away from the bustle of the hangar, the corridors of the _Resolute_ were quiet. The clones stationed here were a couple days out from their last action—it was just Anakin and his small squad that had recently returned from combat. They passed a few troopers bearing the royal blue paint of the 501st, but not many, so that the only sounds were mostly their slowed footsteps and Anakin’s own ragged breathing. A hot band of pain stretched across his ribcage with every inhale and exhale, worse on one side since Kix had draped Anakin’s arm across his armored shoulders. But it wasn’t like he was going to stop breathing to alleviate it, so he just had to bear it.

As they passed through the doors with the medbay symbol on them, Anakin thought it was probably the first time he had been happy to be there. It was pretty empty too, which reassured Anakin for more than one reason, once he was able to belatedly register the fact. He practically collapsed to sit on the bed that Kix had led him to.

He watched Kix pull off his helmet and set it on a table, his thoughts muddled outside of registering how much his own body hurt. He felt like a thick blanket had fallen over his thoughts—like there were lights and sounds that he should be processing but wasn’t. The medic looked at him quickly then reached across him for something on the wall: an oxygen mask.

“Your lips are turning blue,” Kix told him, eyes shaded with concern, “I’d wager you’ve got a collapsed lung.”

Oh. Well. That would do it.

He expertly secured the mask on Anakin’s face, who could immediately feel the change in the air he was breathing—blessedly sharper and a bit colder. Kix secured some kind of monitor around Anakin’s left index finger and then started undoing the chest plate of his armor. After a beat, Anakin reached over to clumsily undo the spaulders on his shoulders. Another medic whose name Anakin hadn’t learned or couldn’t remember came over and Kix spoke to him while unravelling the bandage from around Anakin’s torso. Its absence made it slightly easier to breathe, but it also made his chest hurt more. He was really glad Ahsoka wasn’t here.

“Possible tension pneumothorax,” Kix told the other medic, who set Anakin’s removed armor aside, “I want to get some images.”

To Anakin he said, “I need you to lay back for me, General Skywalker.”

Anakin obeyed, grimacing behind the oxygen mask as the movement pulled at his injuries. The other medic—Anakin resolved to ask his name later— passed Kix a device about the size of the broad side of a mouse droid, though it was much flatter. An X-Ray machine, Anakin guessed.

“Gonna need your arms up to get a good picture,” Kix told him, sounding extremely apologetic. Yeah, that was going to hurt. Anakin instinctively tried to take a deep breath to steel himself for it, but it caught in his throat and he had ended up coughing instead, which was _really_ not pleasant.

_Kriff, Kriff, Kriff, Kriff._

His vision whited out for a few seconds, and when it cleared, Kix had maneuvered his arms above his head for him. Anakin supposed that was better, to just get all the pain at once, even though the aching stretch on the sides of his chest wasn’t really going away the longer he stayed like this. He pressed the back of his head into the bed and squeezed his hands into fists while Kix held the device over his chest.

Kix studied the images that appeared on the device and Anakin watched him. Breathing had gotten fractionally easier, though that might have been because all he had done for the past few minutes was lay here. Then Kix gave quiet instructions to the other medic before turning the images towards Anakin.

“You’ve got two broken ribs on this side,” he said, pointing them out, “and this one over here is cracked. One of the broken ones must have punctured your lung, because this dark spot here is air that’s trapped between the outside of your lung and your chest.”

Anakin had worked on enough valves and compressed air in enough machines to know how pressure worked and to be able to see the problem with that.

“I’ll need to release it so your lung can expand,” said Kix. Anakin was all for anything that enabled his lungs to expand, really, so he nodded. Kix grabbed a pair of shears and set to work on the side of Anakin’s tunic. Another set of ruined robes to add to the pile. The Temple quartermaster was bound to get tired of seeing him at some point soon, if this was how fast he went through robes.

“Not gonna ask me out to dinner first, Kix?” Anakin joked, gasping, as Kix pushed aside the fabric to expose his bare chest and the sunset of angry-looking bruises that covered it. Anakin had to squeeze his eyes shut and then try to catch his breath when the medic’s movement brushed against his ribs. The bruises were probably going to last for a while, he thought unhappily; Padmé was bound to be upset when she saw them.

Kix just rolled his eyes—he had heard that one from Anakin before and he hadn’t really found it funny the first time. The medic straightened, frowning slightly as he rubbed his fingers together, the Lurmen’s medicine having transferred onto them from Anakin’s clothing.

“You don’t know what this is?” he clarified.

“No,” Anakin said.

“And you let them give it to you?”

Anakin would have shrugged if he hadn’t known it would hurt.

“I didn’t sense anything off about it.”

“You didn’t sense—” Kix mumbled to himself in disbelief, “—okay. Well, I don’t want to give you anything else until _I_ know what it was.”

He brought a portion of the discarded bandages to a medical droid for analysis. The other medic came back into view carrying supplies in sealed bags and placed them nearby on a table. He and Kix started unwrapping them and Anakin stretched his senses out into the room with the Force rather than dwell too long on what was in them. It wasn’t that he was _afraid_ of needles, he just didn’t particularly like being poked with them.

He sensed more than heard the droid beep, having figured out the chemical composition of the tree pod oil. There were a few other injured men in beds closer to the end of the bay, but all of them were stable and resting. Kix and the other medic’s Force presences were focused on the task at hand. It still wasn’t easy for Anakin to breathe but feeling the even-keeled sense of purpose radiating from both of them steadied him. They were well-trained and he trusted them.

“It doesn’t seem like anything in that oil should interact with the painkiller I’m going to give you, Sir,” Kix was saying, having consulted the medical droid’s analysis. He used a disinfecting wipe to swab a patch of skin just below Anakin’s armpit. Anakin extended his assessment of the Force beyond the room, into the corridor, hoping to get an idea of how the _Resolute_ as a whole was doing after the battle. Hopefully there hadn’t been too much damage or loss of life and everything was running smoothly—

A familiar, bright, and spiky presence was moving down the hall towards them. It was still shot through with some anxiety and guilt.

“E chu ta,” Anakin swore under his breath at the ceiling of the medbay. Kix paused with the needle in his hand, misinterpreting it.

“You can look away, if—”

“It’s not that,” Anakin assured him, turning his head towards the doorway anyways, “go ahead, Kix.”

He was hoping Kix would just give him the kriffing painkiller before Ahsoka could enter, but no such luck. The automatic door retracted and Ahsoka’s small, lithe form stood in the doorway.

“Hey, Master—”

He face went a slack as she took in the scene: the mask fogging up with Anakin’s too-fast breath, the swatches of dark color on his bare chest, and Kix hovering over him with a needle that was just large enough to be frightening.

“Oh, geez,” she said, taking one step into the room then stopping, unsure of herself. Anakin took his eyes off her for a brief second to look at Kix.

“Just—” he nodded impatiently at the syringe full of medication. Kix understood what he was asking and told him to hold his breath while he did the injection. Anakin did, ignoring the way it took much less time than it normally might have for his lungs to start burning for air. He couldn’t help but clench his fist tighter at the _pinch_ in his side, but Kix was quick about it and Anakin gratefully took another breath.

Ahsoka was still there, watching, her arms wrapped around her bare midriff—the picture of childish uncertainty.

“C’mere, Snips,” he said, once he felt like he had enough air. As she made her way over to him, Anakin felt blessed coolness spread down his chest from the spot Kix had injected the painkiller.

“Thought I told you to go with Master Secura,” he told her once she was standing at his bedside.

“I did, I swear!” She defended herself, eyes fixed on his visible injuries, “but then we went to the bridge and Admiral Yularen asked how you were, so I said I’d go check on you—"

“I see,” Anakin said because it was a decent excuse, if it was true.

“I thought I’d be able to tell him you were just fine! I mean, wasn’t what Wag Too did working? You said you were feeling better, which is the only reason I went with Master Aayla in the first place, and—"

“Ahsoka—Ahsoka—” Anakin interrupted her, “Kix here knows what he’s doing—” he panted, “—I’m not in any danger.”

“You _won’t_ be in any danger once we resolve the pneumothorax, General,” Kix corrected. He looked between Anakin and Ahsoka, whose white facial markings had gone slightly grey at his pronouncement. “I’d like to do that as soon as possible,” he said. “Commander, maybe—"

“Ahsoka can stay if she wants,” Anakin said, hoping that seeing him receive actual, proper medical attention rather than a folk healer’s remedy would put her mind at ease.

“Alright,” Kix agreed, turning around to prepare—whatever it was he was going to do. Anakin focused on his padawan. It wasn’t his first choice to try to do this while his breathing was so messed up, but he probably shouldn’t have put it off so long in the first place.

“Ahsoka, it’s not your job—” he paused to take a breath, “—to take care of me. If you had somewhere else you were—needed right now—that’s where you’d have to be.”

“I know, Master,” she said, “I just—what if you—”

“ _If_ anything happened to me,” Anakin stressed, “it wouldn’t be anything—that you could easily stop— _and_ there’d still be people that need you.”

Ahsoka’s face twisted in displeasure, but she was silent.

“As a Jedi, it’s your job to—go where you are most needed.”

He watched as her eyes wandered, as if trying to avoid his advice, then widened in alarm at whatever Kix was doing. Not wanting to move his arms, Anakin used a touch of the Force to turn her head so she would look him in the eyes. “Hey, focus on me,” he ordered gently, not so much to get her to listen but to calm her down.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed sheepishly, “Master Secura told me something similar, but I think I just needed it to hear it again.”

“It’s alright,” he assured her, “It’s not bad to want to—be with the people you care about.” He drew a rattling breath. “I know it’s hard to see someone—you care about injured, little one—and I’m sorry for doing that to you.”

“You don’t need to be sorry, Master,” she said, “you saved us.”

Anakin smiled faintly and he hoped she could see it through the oxygen mask.

“Alright, General Skywalker,” Kix said from beside him, “I’m going to put this tube through to your chest cavity to relieve the pressure. It shouldn’t hurt too much since I gave you the painkiller, but it might feel uncomfortable.”

Anakin nodded. He felt a bit of a rough tugging sensation in his side and wrinkled his nose, but it wasn’t so bad. Whatever Kix had given him really had been the good stuff. Then Kix applied a quick burst of pressure and Anakin gasped involuntarily. The tightness in his chest started to go away as Kix fiddled with something on his left, and he found he could take deeper breaths.

“Ugh, there’s a _tube_ coming out of you, Master,” Ahsoka said, glancing over and sounding disgusted.

“I have a whole _arm_ made out of metal, Ahsoka,” he said, amused, “there’s a lot of _metal_ and _wires_ coming out of me too.”

She pursed her lips and scrunched her nose. “That’s too weird to think about. Can you go back to lecturing me now?”

Anakin smiled. He wondered how he had gotten so lucky to have such a bright, sincere, and delightfully quippy padawan.

Kix pressed a bacta patch over the tube and the bruised skin on his chest. Glancing at a monitor, he pronounced,

“Your blood oxygen is going back up. That’s a good sign, Sir.”

Anakin nodded. “Thanks, Kix.” He let his eyes slip closed, the achy exhaustion from the past few days catching up with him suddenly. It was probably alright to sleep now, Anakin thought. Ahsoka was here—unhurt—and he had spoken to her, the clone medics were keeping an eye on him, his ship was not under attack from the Separatists (for now), and breathing—though still not easy—was no longer taking up most of his concentration. Everything else could wait.

“General Skywalker—” Kix interrupted, at least managing to sound apologetic about it, “—I really need to make sure there’s nothing else wrong with you that needs medical attention.”

“He probably has a concussion, Kix,” said Ahsoka quickly, and—in Anakin’s opinion—unhelpfully, “he was unconscious for a _while_.”

Anakin opened his eyes to give his padawan a weak glare. A concussion meant painful lights in his eyes and being woken up regularly to be asked if he knew his name and where he was, which were about the last things he wanted to be subjected to at the moment. His head _did_ hurt though. Now that his broken ribs were basically numb, the dull throb of his pulse behind his eyes was becoming more pronounced.

“Give us a minute and then you can poke and prod me to your heart’s content,” Anakin told his medic. Kix’s eyes narrowed briefly, but he relented and went to busy himself with something in another part of the medbay.

“I want you to do something for me, little one,” he told her. She straightened her posture and threw back her shoulders, standing at attention. He fondly rolled his eyes at her enthusiasn, which made the room spin and her face blur briefly.

“If you don’t have any other responsibilities, I want you to find some,” he told her. A warm spark of affection bloomed in his heart as she visibly deflated at the prospect. She may have been on her way to being a highly-trained soldier, but she was still a child. She took a breath, probably to argue, maybe also to ask why.

“Do a maintenance check on the _Twilight_ , go through lightsaber katas, catch up on your class work from the Temple, I don’t care. And _sleep—_ ” he added, “—sleep for at least eight hours. Do it first if you can. Then you can come back and visit me.”

Ahsoka was quiet then, casting her eyes down at the floor. It took Anakin a moment of thinking back over his statement and what he knew about Ahsoka to figure out why.

“I’m not punishing you, Ahsoka. You did well on this mission, and I mean it.” Ahsoka’s lips curled with the praise, but she was still looking at her feet instead of him.

“Snips,” he continued, “it might sound weird, but these things take practice. Better to do it now, when the stakes are low, so you know how later, when something like this happens again.”

He didn’t miss how Ahsoka stiffened at the word _again_ , but the Force was quiet _—_ whatever distress it caused her was minor enough she could hide it behind her shields. He would take that progress. Anakin shifted his right arm slowly so he could hold out his open palm to her. She took his hand and he squeezed reassuringly.

“I’ll try my best to make sure it doesn’t, though.”

Ahsoka smiled tremulously, with just a hint of familiar mischief in her eyes.

“Do or do not, there is no try,” she quoted, happy to have caught him out.

“Yes, my very wise padawan,” he conceded. “Now go.”

He watched her leave—watched her padawan beads swaying slightly behind her head and her lightsaber swinging at her hip. Anakin somehow felt even more tired than he had just a minute ago, as if he had poured the last reserves of his energy into her. Maybe he had. But he found he didn’t mind much.

She would be alright. They would both be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> So I heard about the LA Chargers quarterback getting his lung punctured right before a game because the team doctor was trying to inject painkiller for his cracked ribs, and then this happened. (F in the chat for Tyrod Taylor). I did a little research about broken ribs and collapsed lungs, but I can in no way assure you that this is medically accurate.
> 
> I’ve just been wanting to try my hand at some (more) Anakin whump, and the Jedi Crash arc of Clone Wars is pretty good one imo--one of the better ones in season one. This is 100% an Anakin Skywalker “do as I say not as I do” instance, because almost his entire character consists of…an inability to keep it together when someone he cares about is in danger. But, Surprisingly-Competent-Teacher-Anakin is my favorite Anakin to write, so here we are.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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